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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26322097">as down dark tides the glory slides</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx'>consumptive_sphinx</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>that i should rise and you should not [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arthurian Mythology</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Antitheism, Catholicism, Crazy traumatized people doing their best, Emotional abuse in backstory, Feelings and opinions about destiny, Feelings and opinions about personhood, Grief/Mourning, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:02:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,311</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26322097</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The air in the chapel is very cold and very quiet and the light shines like it’s filtered through sapphires rather than glass. Galahad once said that the icons on the altar felt like being surrounded by friends, because Galahad heard the voices of saints in his ears and saw angels when he closed his eyes; but when Mordred’s head goes strange all he hears is rushing water, and all Mordred sees now is wood and paint.</p><p>Mordred kneels heavily on the stone floor and bows his head and clasps his hands so they won’t shake and tries to pray.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Galahad/Mordred (Arthurian)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>that i should rise and you should not [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890229</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>as down dark tides the glory slides</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/75hearts/gifts">75hearts</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Before the quest, before the Grail, Mordred had shown up at Galahad’s door so many nights that it might as well have been his room too, had become accustomed to falling asleep with his head on Galahad’s shoulder and his arm draped over Galahad’s waist and his body aching with bruises layered upon bruises. Had managed to drive out the thrumming hunger that sits under his skin, and not just ignore it for a time, without leaving himself unable to do anything </span>
  <em>
    <span>else.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Yesterday he went out to the training yard in the hopes that it would help, worked until every muscle burned, and collapsed into his own bed too exhausted for wanting. Today his limbs feel as solid as water and heavy as lead and the day stretches out ahead of him, time that he can do nothing with; before, he would have spent it with Galahad, not even necessarily doing anything together, just existing quietly in the same space, and of course that isn’t an option now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Galahad would have prayed, he thinks. Galahad would have known, immediately, what to do with himself. Galahad had a purpose, one he believed in, had a destiny he hoped to see rather than dreading it. All Mordred has is his own sharp edges and exhaustion that deadens his muscles but lets his mind tear at itself as rapidly as ever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He goes to the chapel anyway, because it’s what Galahad would have told him to do if he could ask, and if he knows what the answer would have been maybe it will feel like less of a loss that he can’t ask the question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(He’s already thinking of Galahad in the past tense, Mordred notes, and despises himself anew.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The air in the chapel is very cold and very quiet and the light shines like it’s filtered through sapphires rather than glass. Mordred is the only one here, which shouldn’t surprise him because it’s midmorning on a Tuesday but still feels strange. Galahad once said that the icons on the altar felt like being surrounded by friends, because Galahad heard the voices of saints in his ears and saw angels when he closed his eyes; but when Mordred’s head goes strange all he hears is rushing water, and all Mordred sees now is wood and paint.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mordred kneels heavily on the stone floor and bows his head and clasps his hands so they won’t shake and tries to pray.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Galahad had dreamed of drowning, not every night like Mordred does but most of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t been afraid of it. Not like Mordred is. Galahad had — has, still, he’s not dead, gone from Mordred’s life doesn’t mean gone entirely — a destiny he believes in. “I know what and who I’m for,” he had told Mordred, once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have a destiny,” Mordred said, careful, careful, and Galahad had frowned and corrected him, “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am</span>
  </em>
  <span> a destiny.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had sounded like</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(like </span>
  <em>
    <span>you are a destiny, my Mordred, my youngest, you are the proof of my brother’s rot, you are his destruction and my vengeance, you are meant for greater things.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Like things Mordred knows somewhere deeper than bone, has known since long before he knew what they meant, or what it meant for him to know them.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>like things that Mordred does not like to think about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a </span>
  <em>
    <span>person,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Mordred had said, and then he’d clamped down on his own words. It had come out harsher than he’d meant for it to. Then, after a pause, shakily, “They don’t get to treat you like you aren’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Galahad blinked up at him. “I’m not, though,” he’d said. “Not the way they are. I don’t think I’d want to be.” Mordred must not have looked convinced, because he’d followed it up with “Mordred, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know what I’m for.</span>
  </em>
  <span> God gave man free will, people don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>have </span>
  </em>
  <span>things they’re for. I don’t know what it would mean not to have a purpose but I’d rather be a promise than just be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The problem with trying to fill the empty stretches of time with prayer, is that Mordred is bad at praying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Galahad praying would have filled up the entire space, the echoes turning his voice into a choir. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Pater noster, qui es in caelis,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Mordred says, and in the echoing chapel it feels very small and overwhelmingly </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong,</span>
  </em>
  <span> like making any sound is breaking something important. He goes quiet again.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m sorry,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he thinks, instead of trying to speak. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m sorry. I know that I’m bad at this. I’m trying, I think? But in a different way I’m really not trying at all, so I don’t know if that makes it better or makes it worse.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I can’t concentrate on anything but Galahad. I’m sorry but — I can’t, I keep trying and then I get distracted wondering if he’s safe or if he’s warm or if he’s happy. Which is a stupid thing to get distracted wondering about, because he’s finally on the quest that he lived his entire life waiting for, but that never really feels like an actual answer and I don’t think I can talk myself into taking it as one.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s probably still alive, at least? But I’m never going to see him again, not in this life and not in the next. — I know Christians go to Purgatory and not Hell but Gawain talks about philosophy when he’s drunk and it’s like the ship of Theseus, right, how much of me can I change before I stop being me?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I know Purgatory is meant to make me into someone who can be worthy of Your grace but I don’t think a version of me who could meet Galahad on the Day of Judgement as a friend would be someone I’d recognize in the mirror, I could become someone who would see him again but that person wouldn’t be me anymore, I don’t know if that makes any sense and it’s probably something I’m not supposed to think in a hundred different ways but it’s still true. There’s — a lot wrong with me, and you’d have to gut it all and replace it with something clean and pure and meek and holy and that person would be better, I know, but he’s not me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s probably some kind of mortal sin that I think my stubbornness and my pride and my fury and the intensity with which I hate are the things that make me myself and I don’t want to change them. I’d repent of it if I could, I think? But I’m not sorry and I don’t regret it so I can’t.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I did tell you I was bad at this. I’m sorry for that, at least.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He stands up. There are pins and needles in his feet; his knees have gone numb. He should, Mordred thinks, feel different, feel clearer. Instead he just feels tired and weak and cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaves.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The day after Galahad left Mordred had repeated the same logic to himself, over and over. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Galahad is a person. Therefore, he has free will. Therefore, he might come home.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He’d turned the words over and over until they were worn smooth like a stone, polished into a single thought rather than separate pieces of a logical chain, </span>
  <em>
    <span>galahad is a person therefore he has free will therefore he can come home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Mordred repeats them to himself now, when he works, when he trains, when he spars. Galahad is a person therefore he has free will therefore he can come home. He is a person, therefore he has free will, therefore, therefore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It should be true. Mordred wants, so badly, for it to be true. And he knows somewhere deeper than bone, knows in a part of him that has always known, has known since before he understood what it meant to know, that it isn’t.</span>
</p>
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